Researchers Confirm: Ancient Man Ate Panda

To think that once upon at time our ancestors entered into mortal combat with these horrifying predators.

Researchers in China have confirmed the horrifying truth at last: Ancient man was pitted against ancient panda in a brutal battle for survival. It's surprising that mankind managed to avoid extinction when faced with a foe as dangerous as the panda.

At any rate, what the panda researchers uncovered is fossil evidence that pandas were, "Slashed to death by man." While they haven't uncovered anything more definitive than these fossils they reason that there would be little reason for early humans to attack pandas for any reason other than turning them into food. The researchers go on to say that pandas from that time period, around 10000 years ago, tended to be much smaller around the size of a Tibetan mastiff.

Of course this begs the question: Just what does panda taste like? Slate has done an admirable job trying to answer that question although the results are far from shocking. As near as they could tell, panda doesn't taste very good. There's only one recent case, in 1983, of a person trying to eat a panda and he reported that it tasted bad enough that he tried to give the meat away. Perhaps more telling, there are no "Panda Pozole" recipes endemic to China.